Lots of videogames try to emulate movies, but some succeed better than others. There’s a moment a few hours into “Uncharted 2: Among Thieves” that neatly captures the thrill of a big-screen action flick. In the midst of a fistfight in a dilapidated building, Nathan Drake, the game’s protagonist and distant relative of explorer Sir Francis Drake, finds himself under fire. A helicopter launches rockets into the building which weakens the foundations and sends the entire structure downward. At that moment, while in control of Drake, I slid between an enemy soldier’s legs, kicking him from underneath and out of a window, only to escape the next moment by hurtling into an adjacent building. The roof is caving in, the soundtrack is pulsating, and, of course, it’s magic hour.

“Uncharted 2: Among Thieves,” recently released for the PlayStation 3, deliberately attempts to capture the feel of an action-packed Hollywood blockbuster. In fact, Sony’s pitched that angle in this commercial where a girlfriend confuses “Uncharted” for an actual film.

The idea, said Evan Wells, co-president of Naughty Dog, the game’s developer, was to create a compelling storyline the way some TV shows and films do. “Video games are caught on the spectacle but forget to develop emotions and character,” Wells said. This means building a story from start to finish that pulls players in.

The game opens with Drake dangling precariously in a boxcar of a derailed train. Players then have to lead an injured Drake, step by step, as he scales the train shortly before it plummets. It’s an opening fitting of a Jerry Bruckheimer film.The first “Uncharted” game was lauded for its well-written story, and the sequel finds protagonist Drake vaulting his way past Russian troops and collecting treasure along the way. To make the characters more believable, Naughty Dog used a unique voice-recording approach. Actors usually perform lines in a studio, which are transposed over digital animations — an awkward process that creates voice-overs that often don’t quite sync. Naughty Dog used a motion-capture studio that doubled as a soundstage. That way, actor Nolan North, who voiced the Drake character, could play his part rather than just recite lines.

The result is more fluid interactions between the actors voicing the characters. Naughty Dog also had the actors continue to work on the game throughout the development process. Normally, voice actors come in for a week or two and record their lines and then shuttle off to their next project. For “Uncharted 2,” Mr. North and the other actors watched other people play the game and then inserted ad-libbed jokes and commentary along the way. “The actors really become an integral part of the process,” says Mr. Wells.

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